THE JESUITS AND THEIR WORKS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 184, 6 October 1876, Page 7

THE JESUITS AND THEIR WORKS.

(Continued ) The libraries of Europe bear silent testimony to the learning 1 and untiring industry of the Order. Nob only have they published an enormous number of works in almost every department of literature, science, and art, but they have rescued from oblivion. " many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore." We find one of those " many-sided " men — Father Lana — a professor of niathematios, publishing in 1670 a work on aerial navigation. Another, Paul de Hoste, brought out a work in quarto on •' Las Evolutions Navales," in 1G76, containing the first description of the celebrated manoeuvre of " breaking the line." It was translated into Ea^lish in 1832 by Captain Boswall, R.N., and was commonly known among naval men as " the Jesuit's book." He also published " Theorie de la Constructions Vais3ieux." One of the first treaties on the science of perspective was published by a Jesuit — Doubreuil — "The Jesuit's Perspective," in 1642. Father Boscovich was one of the most eminent physical philosophers of the last century. He discovered the sun's equator, and by observing the " spots ; " in 1763 was employed with another Jesuit, Mayer, an Englishman, by the Papal Government to measure the arc of meridian, which he traced from Rome to Rimini ; was similarly employed by the Emperor of Austria; wa3 invited by the Royal Society of London, of which he was a member, to go out to California, in 1769, to observe the transit of Venus, but was unable to do so owing to other engagements. Ho published many works, the principal being "Lex Con tinutatis," 1651, "Mathesis Umversa," 1758, and a poem on the "Eclipse," which he dedicated to the Royal Society. Father Grassi, in a treatise, "Da Tribus Cometis," 1619, had the honor of explaining what had bafflad Galileo, and first held the comets to be planets moving in vast elipses round tha sun. — " Hallam's History of Literature in Europe." 111., 18. Father Schemer, Professor of Mathematics at In^oldstadt, observed the "spots" on the sun in 1611, and proved^in a work published in 1610 that the retina is the organ of sight, and that the humors only serve to refract on the optic nerve. He invented photography. Father Griinaldi discovered the inflection of light described in his " Physicomathe3is de Lumine Coloribus et Iride," etc , published in 16 35. Sir Isaac Newton acknowledged his indebtedness to Grimaldi's work for his first notions on the subject. When it was found that the dome of St. Peter's, owin^ to it 3 immense weight, threatened to crush tha piers supporting ib, a Jesuit was employed, in an age famous for its architects, to devise plans for strengthening the supports. Another member of the Order drained the Pontine Marshes. The name of Father Secchi, the present Director of the Observatory at the Roman College, and probably the first j astronomer in the world, is familiar not only to men of science, but , to the general reader. Two of his disciples, Fathers Perry and i Sidgreaves, were employed by the British Government to obser «c the recent transit of Venus in Kerguelen's Land. From the above it will be clear, we think < that the Jesuits are no laggards in the march of science, but advance in the front rank. The proverb, "As is the master, so is the scholar," applies 1 with peculiar fitness to the Jesuits, for we find the keenest intellects of the seventeenth century among their pupils. Cassini was appointed Director of the Observatory of Paris. He discovered several of Jupiter's and Saturn's satellites, determined the rotation of Jupiter. Mars and Venus, measured the meridian line of Paris, and left behind him a great number of valuable astronomical observations. Evangelista Torricelli, who invented the barometer, and improved the construction of telescopes and microscopes, \va3 also educated by the Jesuits, as were Descartes, Bossuet D'Alemberb, Voltaire, Corneille, Montesquieu, D'Argenson, Moliere, Fontenelle, Crebillon, and a host of others, including the famous Francis , Mahoney, better known as " Father Prout." In the interests of humanity and civilisation, as well as of . Christianity, " they were," as Macaulay sa> s, "to be found in tho depths of the PeruTian mines, at the nurb of the African slave caravans, on the shoras of the Spice Islands, in the observatories of China. They made converts in regions where neither a varies ; nor curiosity tempted any of their countryman to entar, and preached and disputed in languages of which no othir mtive of the West understood a word." — Essay on Rmko's " History of th 3 . Popes." He refers to them, also, in his " History of Bi^lm 1" in the following terms : "Before the Ordar hid existed a huairel i years it had filled the whole world with mainorials of great things done and suffered for the faith.' ' (To be continued.)